Biopiracy

This Report of the Committee on Agriculture deals with the action taken by the Government on the recommendations contained in the Thirty-seventh Report of the Committee on Agriculture (2012-2013) on "Cultivation

Karnataka High Court has dismissed petitions that sought quashing of criminal prosecution of senior representatives of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwar (UAS), M/s Mahyco/Monsanto and M/s Sathguru accused by the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) and Karnataka State Biodiversity Board (KBB) of committing serious criminal acts of biopiracy in promoting B.t. Brinjal.

Monsanto, with an annual turnover of around 13.5 billion US dollars last year, is the largest seed company in the world. Based out of St. Luis in the USA, it also leads the Genetically Modified seed sector

Various kisan unions and health groups today came together to express shock and dismay at the Punjab Government’s decision to sign MoUs with Monsanto in the name of diversification. They pointed out that

Various farmers’ unions, environmentalists, social groups, scientific and health organisations as well as individual intellectuals came together on Friday to oppose the decision of the Punjab Government which recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the multi-national company Monsanto to what was projected as promoting crop diversification.
In a joint statement these organisations claimed that the company had no expertise in diversification. On the contrary, it was averse to any diversification and had a history of monopolistic as well as exploitative practices that favoured monocultures.

Biopiracy is a compound word consisting of ‘bio’ which is a short form for ‘biology’ and ‘piracy’. Biopirates are those
individuals and industries/companies accused of one or both of the following acts:

National Biodiversity Authority chairman Dr Balakrishna Pisupati said the abundant biodiversity of India exists to be shared with public and private scientific research organisations, both inland and abroad.
Speaking on the sidelines of the MoP-6, Dr Pisupati said, “While we agree that there has been unregulated use of our plants by multinationals that saw biopiracy cases filed against them, it will be foolish to restrict ethical access to the rich biodiversity of India by closing our doors to research. We have to keep aside the storms of sensational debate and look into the science of it.”

<p><span id="itro1">This global citizens&#39; report published by Navdanya, depicts concentration and restrictions in the global seed sector as a result of IPR regimes and corporate convergence. Focuses